2010 Republican Platform, Part 1

So, recently, as I was wandering the dusty alleyways of the internet (because ‘surfing’ is such a 90’s term) and I came across something that I felt like sharing:

http://static.texastribune.org/media/documents/FINAL_2010_STATE_REPUBLICAN_PARTY_PLATFORM.pdf

For anyone who doesn’t click random links in blogs, and doesn’t just read urls, this is a link to the 2010 Texas Republican Party Platform. Let’s take a look, shall we?

The document is broken into 7 major sections: “Preserving American Freedom,” “Strengthening Families, Protecting Life and Promoting Health,” “Educating Our Children,” “Promoting Individual Freedom and Personal Safety,” “Strengthening the Economy,” “U.S. Sovereignty, Leadership and Foreign Policy,” and “Legislative Priorities.” Clearly, since this is the Republican party platform, the party on the economy is going to be all about cutting spending, so I’ll skip over that. Let’s start with the first bit, shall we?

Preserving American Freedom

This section starts off with the standard message off limiting the power of the Federal Government - a very classic conservative platform, including holding government officials under the same laws as other citizens, removing the parts of the Patriot at that violate civil rights, removing affirmative action... wait. Some of these issues are very state-specific, but some of these national things are, well, enough to completely enrage me.

As I was going through this section, I noticed a little something tacked onto the end of it.

"Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) – We oppose this act through which the federal government would coerce religious business owners and employees to violate their own beliefs and principles by affirming what they consider to be sinful and sexually immoral behavior."

Not knowing a thing about this, I decided to do my homework. To quote Wikipedia (because that's the number one source of information in the world these days): "The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is a proposed bill in the United States Congress that would prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity for civilian nonreligious employers with over 15 employees."

So... they are against an anti-discrimination bill. Gee, and they wonder why people call them bigots?

To my further outrage, I discovered the website http://www.endahurtskids.com/ .Which, in short, offends me to my very core. I'm not very verbal about my political stances, usually, but I am highly opinionated in some cases. I'm very much pro-LGBT rights, but the area where I have the most emotional investment is by far the Transgender area. And so, when I see things like "Do you want men dressed as women teaching your kids?", it makes me want to do something dramatic and violent.

That statement alone shows a complete and utter misunderstanding and bigotry against Transgendered people. Sure, there are people who walk around in drag. And sure, there are people who do it people it arouses them. Those people aren't transgendered. A transgendered person honestly feels like their body is the wrong gender, to the point where it causes them discomfort and distress. Apologies if this is not news, but there still seem to be a ton of people who just don't get it, nor do they try to understand, but instead hide in their hate, because people who aren't 'normal' are weird. And weirdness weirds people out.

But, really, enough of my rabble rousing here. The argument here against ENDA seems to be that it offers Federal protections to the LGBT community, and protects them from discrimination in the workplace, including public schools. Which means that if a teacher is transgendered, then the school is not allowed to fire the teacher on these grounds alone, and as such, the teacher is allowed to continue teaching students. This puts children in close contact with this teacher, and this is apparently a bad thing, because it teaches the students that this alternate lifestyle is just as acceptable as a traditional one. And it's here that the argument loses me, as it never is explained why children accepting alternative lifestyles is a bad thing. Of course, there's the strong appeal to pathos and strongly-worded language through out, as I have already mentioned.

The main problem is this piece is not designed to convince anyone who doesn't already agree. If you already were against the argument, you probably aren't going to read this website and think, "Oh, gee, now that's an interesting point I hadn't thought of. Maybe these guys have some merit." When an argument descends to the point of using slurs, that to me states that it doesn't have a leg to stand on.

And I think that tangent's going to be the end of this post for now. I'll pick up where I left off, at the bit that prompted this one, next time.

Until then, I need a catch phrase!